Course Syllabus (Spring 2012)
Course No: LAIS 498/598
Title: Engineering and Social Justice
Class Meetings: Tues and Thur, from 11:00 am to 12:15pm
Course Website: http://blackboard.mines.edu/
Instructor: Juan C. Lucena, Ph.D.
 Email: jlucena@mines.edu (best way to contact. I check email regularly from 5am to 7 pm)
 Phone: 303-273-3564 (you can leave a message but this is NOT as reliable as email)
 Office Hours: Tues & Thurs: from 10am to 11am and from 1pm to 2pm (Stratton Hall 424)
Course Description: This course offers students the opportunity to explore the relationships between engineering
and social justice through personal reflection and historical and contemporary case studies. The course begins
with students’ exploration of their own social locations, alliances and resistances to social justice through critical
engagement of interdisciplinary readings that challenge engineering mindsets. Then the course helps students to
understand what constitutes social justice in different areas of social life and the role that engineers and
engineering might play in these. Finally, the course gives students an understanding of why and how
engineering has been aligned and divergent from social justice issues and causes.
Required Course Readings:


Riley, Donna. 2008. Engineering and Social Justice. Morgan and Claypool. (Electronically at CSM library
or on paper at CSM bookstore)
All other required readings will be available on Blackboard (BB) course website
Learning Objectives: Upon successfully completing this course, you will have
1. identified your own alliances or relationship to engineering mindsets and your own relationships to social
justice.
2. demonstrated understanding of what constitutes social justice (rights, opportunities, resources) in different
areas of social life and the role that engineers and engineering might play in these.
3. demonstrated understanding of historical and contemporary alignments and divergences between
engineering and social justice.
Teaching Philosophy: Here are my core believes about teaching and learning:
I believe that education should be about students’ learning more than about teachers’ teaching. Teachers and
students should trust and facilitate each other’s learning. Students and professor come to this class with a set of
experiences, previous knowledges (note the plural), assumptions, expectations, conceptions and misconceptions
that shape how they learn. Our collective job (yours and mine) is to make these explicit, to critically assess how
these enhance or hinder our learning, and to provide you with a new set of experiences, knowledges and other
critical tools that will hopefully give us a new way of looking at the world. More than giving you a grade, my
main responsibility is to help you acquire a life-long commitment to check your knowledge, i.e., to critically
question what you know and don’t know, how you came to know it, what you know it for, and how your
privileges have shaped who you are and what you value as knowledge. Your responsibility is to learn to
check your knowledge, to question your assumptions about the engineering-social justice relationship and
to apply this critical thinking to the rest of your life.
I believe that student learning is an evolutionary process that requires time for processing and questioning
new ideas and concepts. The acquisition of new knowledge, especially one that might challenge your core
believes and values about engineering and society, often elicits strong resistance, especially because we will be
questioning many long-held assumptions about these two core concepts (reflect on your assumptions about
engineering that might have led you or your peers to attend CSM!). Our shared responsibility is to acknowledge
this and move beyond resistance. As resistance fades away as the semester unfolds, your learning should
increase, your thinking should become more sophisticated and your attitude for new knowledge becomes
more welcoming. This course is built in such a way that will allow you the opportunity to evolve in your
learning.
I believe that the creation and acquisition of new knowledge is a social process. You will have plenty of
opportunities to develop and process your own individual ideas but soon you will be co-creating and coacquiring knowledge with your peers. Pair and group activities in and out of the classroom are fundamental
elements of this learning process. Hence your active participation in these will be highly valued. Attendance
and participation grading policies reflect this core belief.
I believe that our writing is a reflection of our ideas. To produce good, clear and powerful writing, we need to
have good, clear and powerful ideas (and vice versa). Sloppy writing often reflects sloppy ideas (and vice versa).
Hence in order to improve both, you will need a close and in-depth reading of course material, a commitment to
listening, opportunities to test ideas with others, time to reflect about these exchanges, and a continuous
engagement with your own drafts. Good writing cannot happen the night before a paper is due. You need to
revise your own writing and perhaps have the Writing Center help you as well. My responsibility is to guide you
towards good readings, help you develop your listening, provide you with opportunities to test ideas with others,
and allow you ample time between the assignment of a paper and its due date. Your responsibility is to engage
the readings, be willing to listen, share your ideas with others, think and write critically and give yourself
plenty of time to outline, draft, edit and re-edit your writing (and perhaps visit the Writing Center).
Furthermore, I believe in the power of diverse ideas and arguments. All of us come into this course with
opinions-- weak and strong, clear and unclear, well-supported and not-so-well supported-- about engineering
and society. Our collective responsibility is to turn these into powerful and well-supported arguments that can
hopefully have an impact on the world. To do this we need a respectful and nurturing environment to share
opinions, learn to disagree, and explore ways to turn them into well-crafted arguments. Hence one of my
primary roles is to construct and maintain such classroom environment, constructively challenge your opinions
and help you transform them into well-supported arguments. Your role is to be open to this challenge, learn
not to take challenges against your ideas as challenges against yourself, and to be respectful of the
classroom environment and of others’ attempts at transforming their opinions.
Course Policies:
This course consists of in-depth reading, lectures, in-class collaborative exercises, films, quizzes, written
assignments and presentations. As educator, one of my responsibilities is to put great deal of effort and thinking
in developing these elements and offering them to you to help you learn. As student, your responsibility is to
reciprocate this effort by seriously exploring the reading assignments, being prepared to discuss them in
class, actively participate in collaborative learning, and effectively and critically incorporate this material
in quizzes, papers, group presentations and, better yet, in your own thinking and practices.
As I expect you to evaluate the quality of my teaching and mentoring, you should expect me to evaluate the
quality of your learning and intellectual growth in this course. Ours is a partnership of teaching, learning,
exploration and, hopefully, trust. Hence you should expect that higher quality of discussion, exploration and
writing will warrant you higher grades while lesser quality or incomplete work will warrant you lower grades.
Your grades are based on both the quality of your performance (not so much on how many hours you spend
working), your level of commitment to the learning process and objectives and your willingness to take risks by
challenging your beliefs about energy and society. Specifically, here are my expectations of you in this
course:
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
complete all assigned readings on time, be ready to discuss and engage them in class, and use them
effectively throughout the course.

attend scheduled class meetings regularly since without you the learning environment will be void of your
perspective and your potential to teach and learn from others.

participate in class discussions and activities regularly by raising questions and making contributions that
are relevant and enhance the learning of other students, including making mistakes so you and others
can learn from these. If you text, browse online, do other homework or fall asleep you will be robbing
the class from your ability to teach others and your participation grading will be affected accordingly.

complete all quizzes, papers and presentations on the assigned dates, displaying commitment to learning,
scholarship and further inquiry.

commit to and apply CSM’s Student Honor Code when completing all written work in this course.
Plagiarism is a serious offense that results in course failure. CSM policy defines plagiarism as
Copying or adopting the scientific, literary, musical, or artistic composition or work of another and
producing or publishing it as one’s own original composition or work. To be liable for “plagiarism” it is
not necessary to exactly duplicate another’s work: it is sufficient if unfair use of such work is made by
lifting of substantial portion thereof, but even an exact counterpart of another’s work does not constitute
‘plagiarism’ if such counterpart was arrived at independently.
The policy of the Liberal Arts and International Studies Division is as follows:
 For a first offense, the student will receive an F in the course, and the Vice President for Student Life
and Dean of Students will be notified.
 For a second offense, the student will also receive an F in the course and further action, normally
suspension from CSM, will be taken by the Vice President for Student Life and Dean of Students. The
incident will also become a permanent part of the student’s transcript.
GRADING:
Individual assignments (250 pts):
 Beginning: You will be conducting and recording a self-interview following 10-15 provided questions about
social position and identification. This interview should be done right after the privilege walk in the second
week of class. After completing some readings on social justice, you will listen to this interview and write a
reflection on your relationship to social justice (100 pts)
 End: After having gone through the course and becoming aware of the multiple moments in which privilege
makes a difference in your life and how rights, opportunities and resources significantly influence a person’s
educational trajectory, you will reconstruct your own educational trajectory, from womb to present,
identifying moments of privilege and (in)justice. For this assignment, you are expected to be mindful of
engineering mindsets, how technical artifacts legislate opportunities in your life, and where engineers
or engineering could intervene to ameliorate or exacerbate injustices. You will write a synthesis of how
your perspective shifted throughout the course by listening to the initial interview and addressing additional
questions. (150 pts)
Group assignments (250 pts):
 Presentation and write-up 1: Groups will read, synthesize, present and write on assigned clusters of
readings in one specific subject related to mindsets and social justice. (100 pts)
 Presentation and write-up 2: Groups will also read, synthesize and present on specific case studies of how
climate change and engineered systems interact, enhancing or curtailing rights, opportunities and resources
(social justice) to different groups of people. (150 pts)
Each presentation will be followed by a group written analysis where each individual member will contribute to
the development, writing, editing and completion of the report. The group must show a highly edited version of
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the report showing track changes and editing that reflects everyone input. Grad students note that you have
separate research and presentation projects assigned.
Quizzes (250 pts):
Every now and then, you will write in-class and/or take-home quizzes on key concepts from the readings and/or
key questions that emerge throughout the course. These will help you develop your ideas and gain clarity on key
concepts as you move towards more complex thinking and writing. Points for each take-home quiz will be
determined at the time of assignment. There are no make up quizzes unless you have an excused absence
(see below).
In addition to answering quiz questions, graduate students must complete an analytic reading memo
(ARM). In 1½ to 2 pages, address the following with regard to the assigned readings:
 Argument: Briefly describe the central argument made in the reading. This is not a summary, but a
statement of what the author is trying to convince you is true.
 Evidence: What types of evidence does the author use to support the main argument? How credible are the
sources referenced explicitly or implicitly? What are the weaknesses or strengths of the evidence? NOTE: I
am not asking you to describe the evidence that supports the main argument(s), but to notice and analyze the
types and sources of evidence invoked by the author.
 Connection: Connect this reading to a previously assigned or concurrent reading or to a prior class
discussion. You might describe how this connection informs, challenges, or supports the current reading.
 Questions: List three questions that the reading sparks for you. Aim for conceptual questions rather than
factual questions, as these might be used in class discussion.
Attendance (100 pts):
Now that you understand my teaching philosophy, it should be clear that class attendance is extremely important
and valued. Hence 10 points will be deducted from these 100 points for each unexcused absence. Excused
absences are ONLY the following: official sport varsity team travel, a medical condition excused in writing
by a doctor, a personal matter excused in writing by the Dean of Students, job interviews documented by
employer, jury duty, military duty or common examinations indicated in writing by the department
giving the exams.
Participation (150 pts):
In this grading category I highly value four elements:
 engagement (e.g., are you legitimately interested in class activities or are you falling asleep or texting or
chatting with your neighbor? Are your seriously engaging the material, readings, and questions as
demonstrated by how you answer your quizzes and papers?);
 relevance (e.g., how relevant and constructive are your contributions to the learning environment? how
relevant are your written and oral answers to the questions at hand?);
 being on time with and respectful of your work (e.g., are you turning in work well presented, on time,
and keeping up with the readings when they are due?);
 respect (e.g., are you respectful of others’ perspectives and of the classroom environment? Are you turning
in quality work that reflects respect and commitment towards this class?).
I welcome many types of contributions to class discussion and two in particular. Comments that feature a
knowledge claim supported by well-structured, logical, and relevant evidence that advance everyone’s collective
understanding. Note that well-supported claims are not just stated opinions. Second, I recognize that not all
thoughts come out fully formed, so I also invite exploratory contributions to class discussion, comments that are
characterized more by questioning and inquiring than by answering and defending a position. I will begin
actively seeking student participation early in the course in order to give everyone an opportunity to first feel
comfortable with the classroom climate, topics, nature of discussion, instructor, and process writing. Since
texting, online searching and/or doing homework for other courses have become pervasive activities, I
must clearly state that doing any of these in class will significantly impact this part of your grade. Please
do not be surprised if in-class texting results in a low participation grade.
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Graduate Students: Students taking this course for graduate credit will be required to complete additional
work at a level warranted of graduate school. First, all written assignments will typically be longer in length,
more complex in analysis, and expected to be higher in quality of research and writing (e.g., ARMs with all take
home quizzes). Second, graduate students will be researching and writing case studies about the social justice
dimensions of the relationship between climate change and engineered systems (e.g., coal powered plants,
Mississippi river levees by US army corps of engineers, wind power farms, coastal infrastructure). Third,
graduate students will need to meet additionally with Prof. Lucena outside of class to discuss these research and
writing assignments and map how the course might fit into students’ career goals and trajectories.
ALL WRITTEN WORK MUST BE SUBMITTED BOTH ELECTRONICALLY ON BLACKBOARD
AND ON PAPER IN CLASS.
Grading scale: A (900-1000 pts); B (800-899 pts); C (700-799 pts); D (600-699 pts); F (0-599 pts). These
ranges will be strictly observed.
Schedule
(changes to the topics and due homework might be necessary as the semester progresses)
Thu 1/12
Introduction; self assessment; understanding the syllabus; assign self-interview
Tue 1/17
Engineering and social justice: intro to a complex relationship
Reading due: Riley, D. 2008. What do we mean by social justice? (chap 1)
Class activity: Privilege walk activity; individual reflection to incorporate in interview
Thu 1/19
What might social justice be?
Reading due: McIntosh, P. White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
Engineering mindsets
Tue 1/24
Engineering mindsets: centrality of military/corporate organizations and uncritical
acceptance to authority
Readings due: Riley, D. 2008. Mindsets in Engineering (chap 2); Wisniosky, Matt. From
System Builders to Servants of The System. Grad students also read: Harris, C. E. et al.
2009.Engineers in Organizations (chap 8) from Engineering ethics.
Thu 1/26
Engineering mindsets: desire to help
Readings due: Schneider, J. et al. 2009. Engineering to Help. IEEE Technology & Society
Tue 1/31
Engineering mindsets: positivism and the myth of objectivity and technical narrowness
Reading due: Florman, S. 1996. “Look long on an engine. It is sweet to the eye.” (chap 10)
and “Then I Was Carried Beyond Pleasure” (chap 11) from The Existential Pleasures of
Engineering
Thu 2/2
Student process: synthesis of engineering mindsets
Class activity: concept maps to find connections among mindsets; assign group presentations;
First individual written assignment due
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Tue 2/7
Film: People Like Us (Parts I and II) (Prof. Lucena out of town)
Thu 2/9
Film: People Like US (Parts III and IV) (Prof. Lucena out of town)
Engineering mindsets and relationship to SJ
Tue 2/14
SJ and centrality of military/corporate organizations in engineering
Reading due: Wisnioski, Matt. 2003. Inside “The System”: Engineers, Scientists, and The
Boundaries Of Social Protest In The Long 1960s. History and Technology.
Thu 2/16
SJ and technical narrowness
Reading due: Zussman, Robert. 1985. The division of labor (chap 5) from Mechanics of
the middle class: work and politics among American engineers.
Groups 1&2 presentations
Tue 2/21
SJ & the myth of objectivity
Reading due: Vaughn, D. 1996. The culture of production (chap 6) from The Challenger
Launch Decision. (Only p. 196 to p. 208)
Groups 3&4 presentations
Thu 2/23
Student process
Groups 1-4 write ups due
Tue 2/28
SJ and desire to help
Reading due: Illich, Ivan. To hell with good intentions
Groups 5&6 presentations
Thu 3/1
SJ and uncritical acceptance of authority
Reading due: Vaughn, D. 1996. The culture of production (chap 6) from The Challenger
Launch Decision. (Only p. 209 to p. 237)
Grad student presentations
Tue 3/6
SJ and uncritical acceptance to authority
Reading due: Martin, B. The whistleblower’s handbook: how to be an effective resister
Grad student presentations
Thu 3/8
Student process
Groups 5-8 write ups due
Tue 3/13
Thu 3/15
Spring Break
Spring Break
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SJ, education, engineering and the potential role of engineers
Tue 3/20
Education
Reading due: Barry, B. chap on education in Why Social Justice Matters
Thu 3/22
Higher education and engineering education
Reading due: McLoughlin, Lisa. Community colleges, engineering, and social justice
Tue 3/27
Film: Tambogrande, Part 1
Thu 3/29
Film: Tambogrande, Part 2
Tue 4/3
Dr. Erin Cech, Stanford University
Reading due: Cech, E. et al. 2011. Navigating the Heteronormativity of Engineering: The
Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Students.
Thu 4/5
Dr. Erin Cech, Stanford University
Tue 4/10
Technical artifacts and systems
Readings due: Winner, L. Do artifacts have politics? From The Whale and the Reactor.
Thu 4/12
Climate change, engineered systems, and social justice
Reading due: Listen and read “Struggling To Contain A Rising Mississippi”
http://www.npr.org/2011/05/13/136280440/struggling-to-contain-a-rising-mississippi
Tue 4/17
Nicholas Sakellariou, U of California-Berkeley
Reading due: Gross, C. Community perspectives of wind energy in Australia: The
application of a justice and community fairness framework to increase social acceptance
Thu 4/19
Nicholas Sakellariou, U of California-Berkeley
Reading due: American Engineers for Social Responsibility Newsletter
Climate change, engineered systems and social justice
Tue 4/24
Presentations: 1, 2, 3
Thu 4/26
Presentations 4, 5, 6
Tue 5/1
Grad student presentations
Thu 5/3
Last class; final assessment
Final personal written reflection due during finals week (date TBA)
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Case studies of climate change (CC), engineered systems, and social justice
CC and vulnerability to tornadoes in mid-America
CC and adaptation of peasant life in Peru highlands
CC and adaptation of coastal city infrastructure to sea-level rise in US Eastern seaboard
CC and adaptation of Chicago to heat waves
CC, river flooding and vulnerability of nuclear plants
CC and river flooding in South Dakota
The Living Beehive: CC adaptation in South Africa
CC, Tornadoes and the rebuilding of Greensburg, Kansas
For graduate students:
Australian Green Infrastructure Council Climate Change Adaptation Guidelines
http://www.agic.net.au/agic_climate_change_adaptation_guideline_v2.1.pdf
Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation: A Canadian Perspective
http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/earth-sciences/products-services/publications/climate-change/climate-change-impactsadaptation/356
U.S. Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force: Recommended Actions in Support of a National
Climate Change Adaptation Strategy
US National Academy of Engineering. America's Climate Choices: Panel on Adapting to the Impacts of Climate
Change
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